


Like a scarlet thread

by middlemarch



Category: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (TV)
Genre: Episode 8, F/M, Late Night Conversations, Marriage, Married Sex, Romance, Yiddish, apology, something worth salvaging?, spending the night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 05:56:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15188282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: Before they fell asleep and slept til morning.





	Like a scarlet thread

“What else did you hide?” Joel murmured in her ear. The apartment was still quiet around them, neither of her parents home yet, something she might have wondered about if she hadn’t been in bed with Joel again. He could have spoken aloud, the way he had when they shared a room and their own apartment. She liked talking to him then, the conversations a little looser, running more towards the fantastic, even if it kept her from sleeping. She’d missed that, that kind of fatigue, and the kind that came from a night when he couldn’t keep his hands off her. A night she’d laugh softly at her red lipstick smeared all over his mouth until he asked _So what’s so funny then_ and kissed her more intensely, almost furious.

“Nothing much,” she answered, distracted by his hands at her waist, reaching up to cup her breasts. By the weight of him over her and his scent, the faint herbal fragrance of his pomade, the cologne she’d bought him for his birthday. A woman had needs and she’d gone without for months, who could blame her for being more concerned with how she felt than with what he said. She’d forgotten how to put him first all the time.

“I don’t think that’s the truth,” he said, pausing to kiss her throat, an open-mouthed kiss that lingered over her beating pulse. “I think you’re lying.”

“What?” she cried out. She’d meant to say _No_ but she didn’t want him to stop touching her.

“What else didn’t I have to work for? What else did you just make easy for me, _neshama_?” he said, following the endearment, one he’d used rarely, with a searching kiss to her mouth. A kiss that was unrushed, curious, hungry, that sought to excite her, his tongue stroking against hers. 

“Was it real? When you came?” he breathed against her lips.

“Sometimes,” she said. It sounded like a moan once the word was out of her mouth and he heard it. She looked up at him and saw his eyes were dark, that there was a shadow, some bitterness, and she resigned herself to consoling him. “Joel, it was good. It was fine, I had no complaints.”

“Liar,” he said, without any animosity. He said it the same way he’d said _neshama_ , my soul, the same tender tone he used when he was most taken with her.

“I didn’t realize I was missing your lies. I want it to be the truth,” he said, the words becoming meaningless as they floated away above them. As he moved down her body with his hands and his mouth, rubbing his unshaven cheek on the softness of her belly, nudging her legs apart.

“You don’t have to—I didn’t…get ready,” she said, all her usual loquacity gone. The blankets had gotten shoved to the foot of the narrow bed, all those pale pink linens, and there was nothing to obscure him. Or the look in his eyes as he kissed her inner thigh, the almost feral smile as he breathed in the musk of their earlier love-making, of her renewed, increased desire.

“I like you this way. I want to find out,” he said, breaking off to kiss her, to slide a hand under the thigh she hadn’t measured in weeks. “What you want the most, how to make you stop thinking about anything, anyone else but yourself,” he said, the words stroking her like petals. She closed her eyes with the pleasure of it, the pleasure of his mouth and his tongue, his sensitive hands, his shoulders against her spread thighs.

“Tell me, _neshama_ ,” he said, just loud enough for her to hear over her own panting breaths. “I’ll listen this time,” he said, waiting just long enough for her cries to direct him, to say _longer, more, deeper, slower, fuck don’t stop don’t stop baby_.

“It wasn’t like this before,” he said when she stopped gasping. He’d laid his head on her splayed thigh, left a hand on her other knee. It could have tickled but it didn’t. She could not have pretended anything in the moment so she didn’t try.

“No. Not like this,” she agreed. She felt dissolute and dirty and immensely proud of herself. She didn’t feel shy at all, even though if he looked at her face, he’d see everything.

“What a fucking waste of time. Of you,” he said, still touching her knee very gently.

“I don’t know. It’s not like I asked,” she said, trying to be fair. Whatever that might be.

“I promised to love you, you shouldn’t have to ask,” he said. She sighed, expecting the guilt, the shift to needing to reassure him.

“I’m asking from now on,” he said, surprising her, angling his head to press a kiss to the crease of her thigh. He moved, lifting himself up, bringing his face back to hers, keeping his body just brushing against hers.

“What’d you want?” he said.

“I don’t know,” she answered, surprising them both. He smiled at her, a smile she remembered from their first date, from their wedding. He usually liked it best when she had an answer but this was no answer.

“I love you. Can we try to figure it out?” he said, still bracing his weight above her. He couldn’t keep his warmth from her body though or the taste of her from his lips.

“Yes,” she said. She felt him settle down against her, pressed everywhere. And then he pulled her close, rolled over so they were facing each other, side to side, so they could reach anywhere. They heard to rattle of the front door opening, the heavy tread of her father walking toward his room.

“Quiet,” she whispered. “Be so quiet, Joel, that no one but me can hear you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I know this is not the preferred pairing and that we're generally supposed to think Joel is a jerk, but I think it's more interesting if they are both complex people who love each other and have been avoiding sharing their true selves or even figuring out what they want. 
> 
> Title is from The Song of Solomon.


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